Fall on the Porch & Fake Pumpkin Fixes

Creating a welcoming front porch is one of my favorite ways to celebrate the coming of fall. Most of the time I keep it a fairly simple collection of pumpkins and mums. To keep the budget in check from year to year I purchase a combination of fake pumpkins as well as real pumpkins. Mixing the two together seems to help make the faux pumpkins look more convincing. I have a trick for fixing fake pumpkins. Keep reading!

Don’t miss the 25 other inspirational fall porches below!!

This year marked the return to a bit of orange. I selected heirloom pumpkins with the prettiest shade of soft orange. I can’t even find the right words to describe them, but let’s just call them beautiful, okay?

I pulled together my collection of lanterns, a few mums and of course, pumpkins to create my look this year.

I wasn’t going to disturb old man Tucker and ask him to come sit on the porch, but at some point during the photoshoot I noticed him staring at me through the front door window and knew he wanted to be included.

Turns out it was a busy time of day on the street. There were lots of dogs walking by.

So, now that you’ve gotten a good look at all of the pumpkins I wonder could you could pick out the fake ones?

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Get the look

Would you believe only 5 of the 15 pumpkins you see here are real? Now, let’s make all of those fake pumpkins look more realistic!

How to Make Fake Pumpkins Look Great

In this photo, the three little pumpkins at the bottom are real. I have found that the shapes of faux pumpkins have greatly improved over the years. But, the stems are still too dark and this year, there seems to be an abundance of gold stemmed pumpkins. Clearly that is not realistic looking!!

The pumpkins purchased and used around my house all have a gold-ish, beige tone.

The variegated types seem to have just a bit of green.

I painted them with a mixture of paints, but predominately used Folk Art Camel. The other paints I had on hand for the stems were Americana Light Buttermilk, Folk Art Nutmeg and Folk Art Butter Pecan. After I coated them with the Camel, I dabbed on a bit of the other colors and blended them in.

I wanted to paint a few of the smaller pumpkins to match that beautiful shade of soft orange like the ones purchased at the farmer’s market.

I used Folk Art Pumpkin with a bit of Buttermilk and a dab of Nutmeg. (Sounds like a recipe, doesn’t it?)

After I applied one coat and let it dry, I added more Light Buttermilk to the mixture to give it more of that chalky finish the real pumpkins had. I focused my brush strokes in the crevices.

If you are going to use them outside and uncovered as I am, spray them with a Matte sealant to keep the paint from fading.

The wreaths on the front door were lucky finds at Home Goods last year but I added a few sprigs of orange berry picks to tie it all together.

Here’s hoping the weather finally cools off soon!

Today I’m excited to be joining a group of 25 bloggers who are also sharing their fall porch tours today! Hop around to take in all this stunning inspiration…